Reflections

Many like to regard Op. 87 as a single continuous entity. Perhaps more than Bach, Shostakovich conceived of Op. 87 as a connected whole more than a singular catalog of discrete examples. A strong case can be made for a much greater connectivity between prelude and fugue in Shostakovich vs. Bach. Once again, the speculation inspires the desire to listen, to look, to reflect, to take it all in as one as much as one can. The paring of the 1st and 13th fugues a beautiful detail both for the sake of the art and the exigencies of the performer: each half of Op. 87 is set, beginning with a highly reflective and even conservative fugue. But like the Well-Tempered Clavier, Op. 87 is full of fugues and preludes, each a self-sufficient delight, frequently awesome in its very own detail, articulation, and multi-part narrative. There are entities within entities. The highest order marvel is getting even the most vague sense of the largest entity the entities create.

Besides its exquisite beauty, the chief aspect of this fugue is its use of subject diminution: it changes the note values of the subject so that it plays faster, its duration shorter. The appearance of the subject in diminution marks the second broad section of this fugue and Shostakovich prepares our awareness of by the way he ends the first section. There is one parallel subject entry in the top two voices (entry number 13 and 14) that seem to signify the ending of the fugue itself. Together, the voices sing the subject in its original home key (F sharp major), harmonized with bright and easy thirds. The music winds down, becoming softer and softer, the tempo gradually slowing to match. Everything converges on a graceful ending, a full harmonic cadence landing on a final, sustained F-sharp major triad. It seems that the song is over.

After the most delicate pause, the motion resumes again: the subject appears in the lowest voice and a beat or so later, a higher voice enters with the subject is its diminished form. Technically, this would be considered a special kind of stretto: subject entries overlapping with diminished subject entries. The effect is more complex. Both the subject and the diminished subject standout as distinct themes with great contrast between them. They differ in duration, speed and rhythm. For a moment, it feels as though this fugue has become a double fugue. But since the "second" subject (diminished) is derived from a simple transformation to the "first" subject, there is a motivic unity to this double identity creating a rare and blissful sort of artistic elegance: for all its diversity, its fecundity, its simultaneity, this section of the fugue is astonishingly united, bound together by its commonality. There is something profoundly organic about the way a fugue can generate awesome complexity from a single, modest idea, as if the whole cosmic plan were perfectly embedded within a grain of sand. This wonderfully rich texture continues for nearly all of the remainder of the fugue: subject, diminished subject, stretto. After the last diminished entry, Shostakovich brings the false ending from the first section back. The subject enters in parallel thirds in the top voices, followed in stretto by two more subject entries in lower voices, one at a time. The lowest voice underlines this lovely ending with long sustained tones, pedal points that ground everything with a cadence from dominant to tonic.

This is the only fugue in Op. 87 for 5 parts. Bach provided only two 5-part fugues among the 48 of his complete Well-Tempered Clavier. Both composers exhibit the same percentage of 5-part writing: 1 in 24. It is interesting to examine the subjects of all three 5-part fugues. As one might predict, they are rather simple, perhaps out of necessity to accommodate so many parts. Here they are:

Shostakovich (this fugue)

Bach: Book 1, No. 4 in C-sharp minor:

Bach: Book 1, No. 22 in B-flat minor: